[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 52 (Friday, May 1, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E742-E743]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               HONORING THE QUEENS BOROUGH PUBLIC LIBRARY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. GARY L. ACKERMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 30, 1998

  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to applaud the achievement of the 
Queens Borough Public Library which has grown to become by far and away 
the busiest library in the entire nation. The following article from 
the Washington Post describes how the library has continually sought 
input from a growing immigrant community. The Queens system checks out 
over 15.3 million books and materials a year, and spends more money per 
capita on books than any other major urban American library. The Queens 
Borough Public Library should serve as a model of how one institution 
can bring together people of various races and ethnicities for the good 
of an entire community.

  A Boroughful of Bookworms--Motivated Immigrants Make Queens Library 
                            Busiest in U.S.

                            By Blaine Harden

       New York, April 27--Pin-Pin Lin treks twice a week with her 
     two sons and a big shopping bag to a crowded library in the 
     borough of Queens. The Taiwanese immigrant herds her boys as 
     they plunder books from library shelves and toss them in the 
     bag.
       Sitting between her sons at a library table while they 
     riffle through the books, she looks up words in an English-
     Cantonese dictionary and frets about any ``no-good'' English 
     words they might read, speak or think.
       ``I no want to miss anything,'' explains Lin, who every 
     Thursday morning, when her boys are in school, attends 
     English language class at the Queens library. ``If I don't 
     learn about American culture and speak English, I could lose 
     them. If they think I not understand, they not do what I 
     say.''
       Book-obsessed, worrywart immigrants like Pin-Pin Lin are 
     the driving reason why the Queens Public Library is far and 
     away the busiest in the United States. Most library books in 
     Queens do not go out of date. They wear out from overuse and 
     fall to pieces.
       The library circulates the nation's highest number of 
     books, tapes and videos--15.3 million a year.
       In the sprawling borough that lies across the East River 
     from Manhattan, library card holders check out more books per 
     capita than users of any big city library system in the 
     country. The 1.95 million residents of Queens use the public 
     library five times more frequently than residents of the 
     District of Columbia, twice as often as residents of Prince 
     George's County and a third more frequently than people in 
     Montgomery County.
       The Los Angeles library serves about 1.4 million more 
     people than the Queens library, but last year people in 
     Queens checked out 4 million more books.
       ``We have complaints all the time from our older clientele, 
     who want quiet and who want space. Well, our libraries aren't 
     quiet and, for the most part, they aren't spacious,'' says 
     Gary Strong, director of the Queens Public Library, one of 
     three public library networks in the city. There is also a 
     library system in Brooklyn and the New York Public Library 
     serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island.
       ``The people who use our library are highly motivated,'' 
     Strong adds. ``They want jobs. They want to learn how to live 
     in America.''
       Queens has the highest percentage of foreign-born residents 
     of any borough in New York, a city that at the end of the 
     20th Century is sponging up one of the great waves of 
     immigration in its history. Nearly half the residents of 
     Queens speak a language other than English at home. More than 
     a third were born in a foreign country.
       The extraordinary love affair between immigrants and 
     libraries is a century-old story in New York, as it is in 
     other American cities that have been immigrant gateways. The 
     most crowded libraries in New York have always been in 
     neighborhoods with the largest population of recent 
     immigrants.
       That love affair continues at the end of the century, but 
     with complications, especially in Queens. The book lovers who 
     elbow each other for space in the library's 62 branches are 
     more than ever before a mixed bunch--racially, linguistically 
     and culturally.
       The busiest branch in the nation's busiest library system 
     is in Flushing, which has been inundated in the past decade 
     with Chinese, Korean, Indian, Russian, Colombian and Afghan 
     immigrants. Until a handsome new library building opens this 
     summer, the Flushing branch is crammed into a former 
     furniture store.
       Inside, there are not nearly enough little chairs for all 
     the little kids who wiggle and squeal and devour picture book 
     after picture book. Stacks of blue plastic-coated foam pads 
     are available so kids and parents can sit on the tile floor.
       Queues form behind computer terminals that allow immigrants 
     to search home country periodicals using Chinese, Korean and 
     Roman writing systems. ``Watch Your Belongings!'' signs are 
     in English, Spanish and Chinese.
       There are no public bathrooms--space being too precious to 
     waste on nonessentials. But there are librarians who speak 
     Russian, Hindi, Chinese, Korean, Gujarati and Spanish.
       ``Have you ever wondered where the new South Asian 
     materials are?'' asks a sign taped to a pillar in the 
     Flushing branch library. ``Well, wonder no more. They're 
     here! You can find materials in: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, 
     Malayalam and Urdu.''
       ``We have gone from a dozen countries to a hundred 
     countries,'' says Strong. ``We are not just waiting for them 
     to come to us after they have solved all their problems, 
     after they have a job and after they have the kids in school. 
     We go after them. We advertise. We do not check their 
     immigration status.''
       Immigration had already transformed Flushing from a staid 
     middle-class Italian and Jewish community into a polyglot 
     boom town when Ruth Herzburg took over eight years ago as 
     library branch manager. Herzburg quickly discovered that the 
     branch was falling behind the newcomer mix.
       Herzburg tentatively put a small collection of Korean-
     language books out on a shelf five years ago. ``Those books 
     walked off the shelves. Before that, we didn't really know 
     the Koreans were here,'' she said.
       As immigrants make the transition from their native 
     language to English, Herzburg says they hunger for basically 
     the same kinds of books--translations of potboiler American 
     fiction like Danielle Steel, self-help books and computer 
     books. Many immigrants to Queens have technical skills, she 
     says, and they demand science, technology and business books.
       By spending more money per capital on books and other 
     materials than any other major urban American library system, 
     the Queens Public Library has marshaled its resources to 
     seduce each new group of immigrants and lure them into the 
     branches.
       The seduction starts by sending library emissaries to 
     immigrant associations that work with recent arrivals. In the 
     languages of the immigrants, they explain how the library can 
     show them how to get a driver's license, navigate the 
     Internet and learn English. The library runs the largest 
     English-as-a-second-language program in the country and says 
     it could double its enrollment if it had more space and 
     money.
       ``Starting with survival skills, they get introduced to the 
     library and it is often the beginning of a lifelong habit,'' 
     said Adriana Acaucan Tandler, head of the library's New 
     Americans program and herself an immigrant from Brazil.
       Using census data and a demographer and by commissioning 
     polls among Queens residents, the library has been able to 
     spot holes in library usage. The biggest hole in the late 
     1980s was among Spanish speakers.
       The library went after them with an aggressive public 
     relations campaign. It translated applications for library 
     cards into Spanish, purchased spots on Spanish radio and 
     pulled together a Spanish collection of 100,000 items in 10 
     branches.
       ``In just three years, we found that Spanish speakers were 
     using the library as much as anybody in the borough. They 
     read everything from Cervantes to `Superman.' The secret of 
     our success is that we give people what they want, instead of 
     what we think they should have,'' Acauan Tandler said.
       What adults want, above all else, is translations of 
     American bestsellers in their own language. The library tries 
     to buy them

[[Page E743]]

     quickly and in quantity. At the Flushing branch, the head 
     librarian has about $125,000 a year to spend as she wishes on 
     ``hot'' books.
       ``We don't wait for the central office to send out popular 
     books. We like to go around to all the local bookstores and 
     buy popular books off the shelves. All the books are in 
     foreign languages. We don't even have an English-language 
     bookstore in Flushing,'' said Herzburg.
       Pin-Pin Lin tries to steer her boys, ages 10 and 13, away 
     from Chinese-language books. She prefers they read only in 
     English. To that end, she makes sure they leave the library 
     after each visit with 20 or so English books in the shopping 
     bag.
       ``I don't care if they read all. Kid is kid. If they don't 
     like books. I bring them back and get more,'' said Lin.

     

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